This invention relates to improved dye tubes or tubular carriers for winding up yarns, hereinafter referred to also as "dye tubes", both of the rigid and collapsible or elastically yielding types and in particular is concerned to a cylindrical dye tube for winding up textile threads or yarns, which is provided with a protective tailing surface portion for winding up a length of tail of yarn, required to guarantee the continuity of yarn between adjacent tubes. The invention relates also to an axially compressible dye tube suitable for preventing the yarn from being damaged during stacking and compression of the tubes during dyeing.
The invention also relates to a dye tube made by injection molded plastic materials comprising end flanges and intermediate ring elements interconnected by collapsible and breakable stiffening elements providing a cylindrical yarn winding up surface.
The term "year" used hereinafter refers to any twisted textile yarn or any type of continuous textile thread of filament.
As is known, in the dyeing treatment of yarns, a plurality of tubes each wound with a respective package of yarn, are axially aligned and introduced into an autoclave, in which a dye bath is circulated.
To this end use is made of rigid or elastically compressible tubes of the type comprising a cylindrical body having a longitudinal axis and an outer yarn winding up surface, as well as surface means at one end of said body for winding up an yarn tailing. The body of the dye tube is moreover provided with openings or apertures on its peripheral surface, or the same yarn winding up surface is defined by coaxially arranged range elements joined by cross or spirally-shaped stay elements distributed peripherally at the body of the tube in order to define a rigid and/or elastically compressible or collapsible dye carrier having an open network on the yearn winding surface which enables the passage of the dye bath.
The dye tubes currently in use, do not enable the yarn to be adequately supported in an axial direction during compression as a consequence of the particular confirmation and structure of the tubes themselves; consequently due to the consideration distance between an yarn package on one tube and the package on the adjacent tube, spacing discs must be placed between one yarn package and another in order to prevent uneven compression of all stacked yarn packages. This solution is however disadvantageous since, during preparation of the yarn packages to be introduced into the dyeing autoclave, a considerable quantity of intermediate discs must be positioned between the tubes with a resulting loss of time; moreover the space occupied by the discs is wasted uselessly in the dyeing autoclave thus reducing its productivity.
A further problem connected with the previous dye tubes liens in the danger of breaking the tailing yarn on each tube causing in turn an undesirable penetration of the tailing yarn into the yarn package wound on the same tube.
The main object of this invention is to provide a tubular dye carrier for yarn packages by means of which it is possible to wind a tailing yarn on a suitably protected surface area of the tube, and with which it is possible to support the yarn package adequately allowing it to come into direct contact with the package or packages of adjacent tubes during compression, in this way eliminating the use of intermediate separating discs.
A further object is to provide a dye tube as referred to previously by means of which it is possible to stack one tube on another thus reducing the space occupied in a dyeing autoclave at the same time maintaining the tubes centered and axially aligned for an appropriate compression.
A further object of this invention is to provide a tubular dye carrier for yarn packages as referred to previously, by means of which it is possible to further avoid the problem of damage to the yarn during compression, at the same time ensuring the passage of a dye bath through the tube and even distribution in the mass of yarn.
A further object again of the invention is to provide a dye tube having non-collapsible ends which provide a sliding surface for the yarn package during compression.